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The Museum für Naturkunde Berlin has discovered 40 new Philippine moth species in two studies. The new species are from the snout moth family (Crambidae), an extensive and frequently ignored group that is crucial to ecosystems.
Integrative taxonomy—combining genomic data with morphological characteristics—helped the researchers identify these new species.
The Philippines has many endemic species, making it a biodiversity hotspot. These habitats are threatened by deforestation and population growth. Documenting biodiversity in this region is crucial before it’s destroyed.
Théo Léger’s Bulletin of the Society of Systematic Biologists study on the Crambinae and Scopariinae subfamilies was the first of two.
Anne Müller’s bachelor’s thesis, published in the Journal of Asia-Pacific Biodiversity, researched species in the newly identified subfamily Lathrotelinae.
Both projects utilized almost 700 moth specimens from Berlin and Copenhagen collections.
The findings were striking: Over half of the samples were new species. The scientists also found many cryptic species—moths that seem similar but are genetically different.
The researchers didn’t need to go to the tropics to make these findings. Moths captured over 30 years ago in the Philippines were unexplored in the museum’s collections. This shows natural history archives’ concealed research potential.
New species help us understand ecosystems, evolutionary processes, and species adaptation—especially to climate. The rice stem borer, one of the most damaging snout moths in South and Southeast Asia, is also important to agriculture.
Researchers say many parts of the Philippines, especially distant mountain regions, are undiscovered. Thus, subsequent excursions may deliver more remarkable discoveries.
Sources:
Théo Léger. (2025). Half of the Diversity Undescribed: Integrative Taxonomy Reveals 32 New Species and a High Cryptic Diversity in the Scopariinae and Crambinae of the Philippines (Lepidoptera: Crambidae), Bulletin of the Society of Systematic Biologists. DOI: 10.18061/bssb.v3i2.9527
Forty new moth species from the Philippines previously unknown to science discovered in collection. https://phys.org/news/2025-05-forty-moth-species-philippines-previously.html
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